BASIC 


A 
LITTLE   ABOUT 

GEOGRAPHY 

BY 

CLAUDE    FLIGHT  &   EDITH   LAWRENCE 


PITMAN 


IS 
3EN 


A  LITTLE 
ABOUT  GEOGRAPHY 


by 

CLAUDE  FLIGHT 

and 

EDITH  LAWRENCE 


PUBLISHED  FOR  THE  ORTHOLOGICAL  INSTITUTE 
BY  SIR  ISAAC  PITMAN  &  SONS,  LTD. 


NOTE 

It  is  not  possible  to  put  the  names  of  all  the  places  talked  of  in  this  book  on 
the  small  number  of  very  simple  maps,  done  by  a  process  named  '  Lino-Cutting,' 
which  go  with  it  ;  so  here  is  a  list  of  them,  and  you  may  see  where  they  are,  from 
the  great  books  of  maps  at  school,  but  some  of  them  are  not  on  any  map. 

They  are  in  the  order  in  which  they  come  in  :— 

Etna,  Vesuvius,  New  Zealand,  Pompeii,  Herculaneum, 

'Lemuria'  (not  in  the  map-books),  Pacific  Ocean,  'Atlantis'  (not  in  the  map-books), 
Atlantic  Ocean,  La  Rocque  Gageac,  France,  Dordogne  River,  Java,  Sussex, 
Heidelberg,  Europe,  Africa,  America, 

Avebury,  Wiltshire, 

Straits  of  Gibraltar,  Spain,  England,  Holland,  Germany,  Baltic  Sea,  the  rivers 
Rhone,  Danube,  Dneister,  Dnieper,  Rhine,  Elbe,  Vistula,  and  Niemen, 
Cornwall,  Egypt,  Italy,  The  Channel,  Skager  Rack,  Dardanelles,  Black  Sea, 

River  Nile,  Mediterranean  Sea,  Somaliland,  Sahara,  China, 

Persian  Gulf,  the  rivers  Tigris  and  Euphrates,  Babylon,  Arabia, 

Crete,  Palestine,  Carthage,  Rome,  India,  Treen  and  Dinas,  Land's  End,  Persia, 

Caspian  Sea,  Turkestan, 

Asia,  Alexandria,  Tibet,  Northumberland,  Australasia, 

Maiden  Castle,  Dorchester,  Russia,  Mongolia,  Norway,  Iceland,  Nova  Scotia, 
Main,  British  Isles,  Ceylon,  Red  Sea,  Dead  Sea, 

Pekin,  China,  Canary  Isles,  Azores,  Madiera,  Paradise  (not  in  the  map-books), 
Jerusalem,  Yangchow,  Mexico,  Peru, 

Newfoundland,  Rocky  Mountains,  Andes,  Cotopaxi,  Chimborazo,  Aconcagua, 
Popocatapetl,  Missouri,  Mississippi,  Amazon, 

Cape  of  Good  Hope,  Zanzibar,  Sumatra,  Java,  Celebes,  Moluccas, 

Portugal,  Australia,  Tasmania, 

Siberia,  Walcheren  Island,  Hwang-Ho,  Austria,  Switzerland, 

Canada,  Pacific  Ocean,  Hudson's  Bay,  London,  Edinburgh, 

Botany  Bay,  South  Africa,  Egypt,  North  Pole,  South  Pole,  Bristol, 

Mount  Everest,  the  '  Stratosphere  '  (not  in  the  map-books). 


2043613 


A  LITTLE  ABOUT  GEOGRAPHY 


The  story  of  this  earth  on  which  we  are  living  had  its  start  long,  long  before 
there  was  anybody  on  it,  but  stories  without  persons  are  not  very  interesting,  so  I 
will  not  say  much  about  the  earliest  times— though  without  some  knowledge  of 
those  times  it  is  hard  to  see  why  the  face  of  the  earth,  the  seas,  the  lands,  the 
mountains,  and  the  rivers  were  as  they  were  when  the  first  men  and  women  came 
into  existence.  The  earth,  as  you  will  see  in  A  Little  about  History,  was  at  the 
start  like  a  great  fire  giving  off  gas  and  flames,  and  this  fire  took  a  very,  very  long  time 
getting  cold.  When  the  earth  became  cold  on  the  outside— the  earth  is  what 
is  named  an  'oblate  spheroid,'  that  is,  almost  round,  like  an  orange— by  degrees 
strange  animals  and  plants  and  trees  came  into  existence  and  made  their  living-place 
on  it.  The  heat  down  in  the  middle  of  the  earth  is  still  very  great,  though 
you  would  have  to  make  a  hole  much  deeper  than  any  springs  or  coal  mines  to  get 
to  those  parts,  and  then  it  wouldn't  be  a  very  pleasing  experience.  The  best  way  of 
getting  an  idea  how  warm  it  is  inside  the  earth,  is  to  go  and  see  a  burning  mountain 
like  Etna  or  Vesuvius,  with  the  smoke  and  boiling  lava  bursting  out  of  it,  or  to  have 
a  bath  in  one  of  the  warm  springs  of  New  Zealand.  These  burning  mountains,  or 
'  volcanos,  '  are  holes  in  certain  mountain  tops  which  go  deep  into  the  earth,  and  it 
is  a  good  thing  there  are  not  a  great  number  of  them,  because  sometimes,  when 
there  is  an  outburst,  all  the  country  and  towns  round  are  covered  with  dust  and 
burning  liquid.  The  destruction  of  Pompeii  and  Herculaneum  came  about  in  that 
way.  Another  danger  is  that  earthshocks  sometimes  take  place  when  the  outer  part 
of  the  earth  is  moved  by  the  heat  in  the  middle.  But  it  is  good  to  have  a  wash  in 
the  warm  springs— only  we  haven't  any  near  our  houses. 

It  was  such  millions  and  millions  and  millions  of  years  from  the  time  when  the 
outside  of  the  earth  became  cold  to  the  birth  of  the  first  men  and  women  on  it, 
that  the  men  of  science— who  have  a  knowledge  of  these  things— have  made  a 
division  of  this  time  into  long  stretches  named  '  epochs.'  In  these  epochs  all 
the  outer  part  of  the  earth  has  been  changed  from  warm  to  cold  in  different  places ; 


here  the  land  has  been  covered  by  the  sea,  and  there  the  sea  has  been  covered  by 
the  land  ;  in  some  epochs  all  the  land  now  in  existence  was  covered  with  ice,  even 
in  summer,  in  others  beautiful  plants— or,  as  men  of  science  say,  'luxuriant  flora'— 
came  up  where  now  there  is  nothing  at  all  but  ice  and  snow. 

There  are  four  of  these  long  stretches  of  time  named  epochs,  and  only  in  the 
fourth  did  the  first  men  and  women  come  into  being— and  it  is  in  the  fourth  we  are 
living  now.  But  the  first  men  and  women  had  no  knowledge  of  anything  which  had 
taken  place  on  the  earth  before  their  birth,  or  of  anything  about  the  outside  part 
of  the  earth  other  than  what  they  saw  with  their  eyes,  because  Geography  is  a 
science  which  hadn't  at  that  time  come  into  existence. 

We  will  now  see  how  Geography  got  its  start. 


I 

In  the  middle  picture  we  see  the  earth  half  in  sunlight  and  half  in  the  dark. 

The  thick  white  lines  are  the  '  parallels  of  latitude  '  and  the  '  meridians  of  longitude.' 
There  are  no  such  lines  on  the  earth  itself.  They  are  only  a  way  of  measuring  the  position 
of  any  place  on  the  earth. 

The  top  five  pictures  are  of  a  volcano  bursting  out.  The  lava  is  running  down  the 
mountain  side  and  the  dust  and  bits  of  burned  substance  are  falling  into  the  sea. 

In  the  other  pictures  we  see  parts  of  the  earth  when  it  was  covered  with  ice,  and 
again  at  a  warmer  time. 


More  than  once  in  history  parts  of  the  earth  have  become  covered  by  the  sea, 
and  others  have  come  up  from  the  water,  forming  new  lands. 

There  is  a  belief  that  at  one  time  there  were  in  the  Pacific  great  separate 
land-masses,  on  which  were  living  persons  like  ourselves,  and  that  thousands  of 
years  back  (it  is  impossible  to  say  how  far  back)  these  great  islands  went  down 
again  into  the  Pacific.  These  land-masses  are  named  by  us  '  Lemuria.'  The  same 
thing  may  have  taken  place  in  the  Atlantic,  and  to  the  islands  which  may  at  one 
time  have  been  there  we  give  the  name  '  Atlantis.' 

But  we  have  so  little  knowledge  about  the  geography  or  history  of  Lemuria 
and  Atlantis  that  it  will  be  wiser  to  give  all  our  attention  to  those  parts  of  the  earth 
which  have  been  where  they  are  long  enough  for  us  to  be  able  to  make  discoveries 
about  the  men  and  women  living  there  in  past  times.  And  so  our  book  will  be 
about  the  geography  of  the  earth  as  it  is  today,  or  almost  as  it  is,  and  nothing  more 
will  be  said  about  the  great  lands  now  no  longer  in  existence. 

Instruments  made  of  sharp  stone,  stones  cut  into  the  forms  of  men  or  animals, 
paintings  on  the  walls  of  holes  in  the  mountain-sides,  broken  pots  and  bones— these 
are  the  chief  things  from  which  we  get  our  knowledge  of  how  and  when  the  earliest 
men  and  women  were  living. 

Living  in  natural  holes ;  or  '  caves,'  in  the  side  of  a  slope  by  a  river,  the  first 
men  (we  give  them  the  name  of  '  Drift  Men  ')  saw  that  the  sun  came  up  in  the  east 
and  went  down  in  the  west  every  day,  but  they  had  no  idea  why.  They  saw  that 
the  winter  was  cold  and  the  summer  was  warm,  and  that  night  came  after  day. 
But  when,  once  in  a  great  number  of  years,  an  '  eclipse  '  took  place,  that  is,  when 
the  sun  was  covered  by  the  moon,  they  were  overcome  with  fear,  and  certain  that 
the  day  had  gone  for  ever.  In  addition,  they  made  the  observation  that  their  river 
was  running  the  same  way  all  the  time,  but  they  would  have  been  surprised  if  any- 
one had  said  that  theirs  was  not  the  only  river  on  the  earth.  In  summer  the  river 
had  less  water  in  it,  or  became  dry,  and  in  winter  it  came  up  over  its  sides,  but 
they  had  no  idea  what  made  it  do  this.  The  common  belief  was  that  the  '  gods,'  or 
unseen  powers,  were  angry  with  them  when  the  river  got  over-full  or  went  dry,  or 
when  there  was  thunder  and  the  sky  was  forked  with  light,  or  when  there  was  more 
than  enough  or  not  enough  rain.  The  Sun  was  a  sort  of  god,  and  so  was  the  Moon, 
and  there  were  gods  in  all  natural  forces,  and  in  the  trees  and  woods  and  mountains 
and   rivers.    You  see,  they  had   no  idea  of  what  Geography  is  at  all.    But  that  is 


not  surprising,  because  there  were  no  books  in  those  days  to  give  them  the  facts; 
in  fact  there  was  no  reading  and  writing  at  all.  And  as  for  doing  arithmetic,  they 
probably  had  no  idea  that  they  had  ten  fingers  and  ten  toes. 

They  went  about  in  fear  of  such  animals  as  the  '  mammoth,'  the  'cave-bear,' 
the  'rhinoceros,'  and  the  early  'tiger'  with  long  curving  teeth,  which  went  freely 
over  the  mountains  and  down  into  the  lowlands.  They  were  only  completely  safe 
in  their  caves,  because  these  were  half-way  up  the  face  of  the  mountains,  and  the 
only  way  to  get  in  and  out  of  them  was  by  thick  cords  which  were  pulled  up  at 
night.  If  you  go  to  a  place  named  La  Rocque  Gageac,  in  the  middle  of  what  is  now 
France,  you  may  go  up  some  steps  into  one  of  these  caves.  It  is  a  good  sort  of 
place  full  of  sunlight,  with  a  beautiful  view  over  the  Dordogne  River. 

The  science  experts  who  have  to  do  with  these  things  are  able  to  give  us  some 
light  on  these  early  times,  and  they  make  attempts  to  say  when  the  different  sorts 
of  men  were  living.  But  that  is  very  hard,  because  it  is  so  long  back  and  very  little 
material  has  come  down  from  those  times.  Some  persons  had  short  heads,  and  some 
long  heads,  but  it  is  quite  impossible  for  the  experts  to  say  which  came  into 
existence  first.  The  names  given  to  the  earliest  different  sorts  of  heads  have  a  very 
interesting  sound,  specially  the  last— they  are  named  after  the  places  where  these 
heads  were  uncovered— Java,  Sussex,  Heidelberg,  Neanderthal. 


Lemuria  is  seen  in  the  middle  picture  and  Atlantis  in  one  of  the  little  ones.  I  have 
made  them  white,  and  the  Pacific  in  one,  and  the  Atlantic  in  the  other,  are  black.  Australia 
and  New  Zealand  as  they  are  today  are  marked  by  squares,  and  so  are  parts  of  the 
edges  of  Europe,  Africa,  and   America. 

In  the  top  picture  I  have  put  some  of  the  gods  from  Easter  Island,  to  which  the 
Lemurians  are  offering  their  respect.  Four  persons  are  running  away  in  fear  because  the 
shade  of  the  moon   is  shutting  out  the  sun. 

A  short-headed  man  is  having  an  argument  with  a  long-headed  man.  A  rhinoceros 
is  going  after  a  man,  driving  him  into  the  water,  and  later  he  is  more  than  pleased  to 
get  safely  up  into  a  friend's  cave. 


The  earliest  men  and  women  were  living  in  the  '  Paleolithic '  time,  or 
'  Early  Stone  Age,'  so  named  because  they  made  hammer-heads  and  knives  out  of 
bits  of  stone,  not  very  expertly.  The  name  is  used  because  no  better  one  has 
come  to  mind,  and  not  being  able  to  say  in  what  years  these  men  were  living,  we 
have  to  have  some  sort  of  name  for  them.  The  Early  Stone  Age  men  made  use  of 
their  hammers  and  knives  for  putting  to  death  and  skinning  animals,  which  they  got 
by  tricking  them  into  holes  in  the  earth.  They  were  dependent  on  such  animals 
and  on  fish  for  their  food,  and  after  a  time,  when  they  were  going  from  place 
to  place  looking  for  animals,  they  made  the  discovery  that  the  river  near  their 
living-place  came  from  a  number  of  little  rivers,  and  that  there  were  islands  here 
and  there  where  it  got  wider,  and  that  at  last  it  went  into  the  sea.  All  this  was  the 
starting-point  of  Geography.  In  addition,  they  came  across  inland  waters  and 
mountains  and  highlands,  and  though  they  would  have  been  unable  to  give  a  clear 
account  of  it,  they  saw  that  the  high  land  between  rivers  going  in  different  directions 
was  what  is  now  named  a  '  watershed '—it's  something  like  the  roof  of  a  building, 
isn't  it?  In  the  same  way,  we  give  the  land  drained  by  a  river  the  name  of  'river- 
basin,'  only  it  isn't  a  very  good  name,  because  our  basins  are  round.  The  high 
mountains  were  all  rough  stone,  and  full  of  dangers,  so  they  were  no  good  for  living 
in,  and  the  wet  lowlands  near  the  river's  mouth— that's  a  strange  word  for  it,  but 
a  river  is  somewhat  like  a  snake— were  unhealthy,  and  if  you  didn't  take  care  where 
you  were  putting  your  feet  you  got  pulled  down  into  it.  (So  '  mouth  '  is  quite  a  good 
name,  after  all).  Early  men  and  women  made  very  little  attempt  to  see  where  the 
river  came  from,  because  that  wasn't  important  to  them  in  any  way ;  you  see,  their 
only  thought  was  how  to  get  food  as  quickly  and  as  safely  as  possible,  and  then  get 
back  to  their  caves. 

These  men  had  no  laws  as  we  have,  but  the  Father  of  the  family  said  what 
everyone  was  to  do;  and  if  they  didn't  do  it  he  gave  them  a  blow  on  the  head. 
And  sometimes,  when  the  Father  got  ill  or  old,  one  of  the  sons  gave  him  a  blow  on 
the  head.    It  is  not  hard  to  see  that  with  that  sort  of  thing  going  on,  in  addition  to 


the  business  of  getting  animals  for  food,  no  one  had  much  time  for  Geography.  On 
top  of  their  other  troubles,  they  had  very  unhealthy  skins.  This  was  because  they 
didn't  have  three  meals  a  day,  seated  round  a  table,  as  we  do;  they  had  as  much 
food  as  they  were  able  to  take,  as  frequently  as  possible,  and  it  was  all  meat  and  no 
bread.  Then  sometimes  they  went  without  food  for  a  very  long  time.  And  at  certain 
times  of  the  year  they  made  meals  of  insects  and  other  animals  which  seem  to  us 
disgusting,  such  as  you  see  in  the  two  top  pictures.  They  had  no  ideas  about  what 
was  good  for  food  as  we  have,  and  so  their  skins  were  all  very  unhealthy. 


A  Paleolithic  man  is  cutting  stones,  which  are  being  fixed  by  a  woman  to  hand-parts 
of  wood  or  horn  with  bits  of  leather.  These  stone  hammers  are  of  great  use  for  getting 
animals.  A  thread  of  water  is  running  down  the  two  sides  of  the  watershed  in  the  top 
middle  picture  ;  lower  down  it  becomes  a  river,  and  later  on  goes  into  the  sea.  There  is 
no  one  living  on  the  island. 


This  sort  of  thing  went  on  for  very  long  time;  but  by  degrees  some  persons 
got  more  expert  at  making  things.  They  made  better  stone  knives,  and  pointed 
heads  for  the  'arrows'  and  'spears'  which  they  sent  at  animals.  They  had  'bows' 
for  sending  the  arrows,  and  when  an  animal  had  been  wounded  with  these  from  a 
distance,  they  were  able  to  get  near  and  put  it  to  death  with  their  spears.  They 
became  much  better  at  cutting  hard  stone  by  hand  than  we  are,  because  it  was  so 
very  important  for  their  instruments  to  be  sharp.  The  time  when  the  more  expert 
men  were  living  has  been  named  by  men  of  science  the  '  Neolithic,'  or  '  Late  Stone 
Age,'  and  their  arrow-heads  are  still  to  be  seen  in  the  open  country  in  different 
parts  of  Europe.  These  Neolithic  men  were  very  good  at  putting  animals  to  death, 
and  they  were  very  pleased  with  their  invention  of  bows  and  arrows.  But  they  did 
not  give  all  their  time  to  this  business  ;  some  of  the  brightest  of  them  got  the  idea 
of  making  little  fields  and  putting  grain-seed  in  them.  Now  men  who  go  about  the 
country  looking  for  animals  for  food  get  more  knowledge  of  geography  in  some  ways 
than  do  those  who  keep  to  one  place,  because  they  see  more  things.  But  frequently 
in  those  days  there  were  unhappy  surprises,  and  the  animals,  very  far  from  being 
put  to  death  or  running  away,  went  after  the  men  and  put  them  to  death.  For  this 
reason,  those  who  were  best  at  getting  animals  gave  all  their  attention  to  this 
business,  and  had  no  thought  for  any  other.  The  earliest  farmers,  on  the  other 
hand,  had  to  give  all  their  attention  to  learning  about  the  earth  and  how  to  get  the 
land  ploughed  with  wood  ploughs,  to  put  seed  into  the  fields,  to  get  in  the  grain, 
and,  last,  to  get  it  crushed   in  stone   machines   worked  by  hand,  named  'querns.' 

Small  towns,  or  groups  of  little  houses,  took  the  place  of  the  caves  in  which  men 
had  been  living  in  earlier  times.  Every  group  of  houses  had  a  wall  of  wood  round  it, 
and  outside  this,  all  round,  a  hole  deep  enough  to  have  water  in  it.  The  towns  were 
put  on  the  tops  of  slopes,  so  that  it  would  be  possible  to  keep  off  the  attacks  of 
animals  and  other  men  without  much  trouble— because  in  those  days  men  were  not 
very  different  from  animals  when  it  came  to  fighting. 

The  strongest  and  wisest  man  in  the  group  was  chief  or  king,  but  he  wasn't 
like  our  kings  today,  who  haven't  much  power,  or  like  those  rulers  named  'Dictators' 
who  don't  let  anybody  but  themselves  have  any.  He  did  his  best  for  everyone,  and 
if  he  didn't  do  his  work  well,  or  was  only  interested  in  what  he  got  out  of  it  himself, 
It  was  quite  simple  to  put  another  man  in  his  place. 


These  kings  had  to  do  certain  acts  which  were  said  to  have  the  power  of 
producing  effects  for  the  good  of  the  group.  These  acts  are  what  is  named  '  ritual,' 
and  the  existence  of  the  king  was  a  '  ritual  existence,'  that  is,  it  was  ruled  by  laws 
handed  down  from  father  to  son  giving  detailed  directions  about  what  the  king  had 
to  do  or  say  at  certain  times.  The  well-being  of  all  was  dependent  on  this  ritual 
being  done  in  the  right  way. 

After  a  time  came  boats  made  by  hollowing  out  trees,  in  which  it  was  possible 
to  go  about  on  the  water;    and  this  was  the  start  of  longer  journeys. 

There  were  naturally  no  countries  marked  off  as  they  are  today,  because 
England  and  France  and  America  were  nobody's  special  property  (and  anyway  the 
discovery  of  America  had  not  taken  place  then) ;  there  were  only  different  groups 
of  men,  some  small  and  dark  with  long  heads,  and  others  tall  and  light-haired  with 
short  heads.   And  they  had  dogs. 

Later  on  cows,  goats,  and  pigs  were  made  the  servants  of  men,  and  were  used 
for  food.  And  then  came  the  invention  of  carts,  pulled  by  animals  of  the  cow  family, 
and  instruments  for  making  cloth  from  thread  ;  and  clothing  of  linen  was  made  from 
the  'flax*  plant.  At  first  they  made  pots  by  hand  and  let  them  get  dry  in  the  sun, 
but  later  on  they  made  them  as  we  do,  on  a  wheel,  heating  them  in  the  fire  so  that 
they  became  hard  and  did  not  let  water  through. 

They  had  some  knowledge  about  the  sun  and  moon  and  stars,  and  their  kings 
were  looked  on  as  gods  and  named  Sun  Gods,  and  were  made  responsible  for  the 
growth  of  the  grain.  All  sorts  of  strange  things  were  done  at  the  times  of  planting 
and  cutting,  in  the  Spring  and  at  the  New  Year,  and  on  other  special  days.  Avebury, 
the  great  stone  circle  in  Wiltshire,  England,  was  one  of  the  places  of  religion. 

Religion  and  government  were  all  so  mixed  together  that  it  is  hard  to  make 
a  division  between  them— it  was  only  later  that  the  church  and  the  government 
became  separate  things.  A  great  number  of  men  and  women  by  this  time  no  longer 
went  about  with  nothing  on  ;  they  were  dressed  something  like  the  Red  Indians  of 
the  story  books. 


The  man  with  the  bow  at  the  top,  with  the  cruel-looking  animal  coming  after  him. 
hadn't  any  time  for  Geography,  but  the  man  with  the  cart  at  the  foot  had  quite  enough. 
The  Sun  God  and  his  woman  are  dancing  one  of  their  ritual  dances  inside  a  circle  of  great 
stones. 

There  is  no  need  to  say  anything  about  the  rest,  is  there? 


The  first  men  who  went  on  long  journeys— we  have  no  knowledge  of  their 
names  or  where  they  first  came  from— had  trade  ways  by  land  and  sea.  The  most 
important  sea-way  was  through  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar  and  up  the  sides  of  Spain, 
France,  England,  Holland,  and  Germany  into  the  Baltic  Sea.  That  by  land  was  up  the 
great  rivers  which  go  from  the  south  across  Europe,  such  as  the  Rhone,  the  Danube, 
the  Dneister  and  the  Dnieper,  and  then  down  the  Rhine,  the  Elbe,  the  Vistula,  and 
the  Niemen.  With  the  help  of  these  rivers  men  were  able  to  go  on  long  journeys 
quite  safely,  and  to  take  their  goods  for  trading  with  them. 

The  chief  reason  for  these  journeys  was  to  get  'amber'  and  gold.  There  was 
gold  in  the  beds  of  rivers,  and  amber  (a  beautiful  yellow  substance  which  has  an 
attraction  for  bits  of  paper  if  it  is  rubbed)  round  the  edges  of  the  Baltic  Sea.  Gold 
and  amber  were  looked  on  as  having  a  special  power,  and  were  an  important  part 
of  the  ritual  and  dress  of  a  king,  and  these  two  necessary  substances  were  only  to 
be  got  by  these  early  men  in  far  countries.  They  went,  in  addition,  as  we  will  see 
later,  to  Cornwall  for  tin,  but  this  was  needed  for  trade  purposes,  not  for  religion. 

As  far  as  we  have  any  knowledge— because  we  are  now  talking  of  about  six 
thousand  years  back,  which  is  a  long  time— all  the  different  groups,  or  '  peoples,'  on 
the  earth  were  increasing,  and  these  "  sons  and  daughters  of  the  sun  "  went  from 
place  to  place  farming  new  land.  They  went  slowly  because  they  still  had  no  horses 
for  pulling  carts  or  taking  men  on  their  backs  ;  this  only  came  about  2,000  years  later. 
If  you  have  ever  had  any  experience  of  walking  by  the  side  of  a  cow,  you  will  have 
an  idea  of  the  slow  rate  at  which  they  had  to  go. 

Then  came  the  discovery  by  someone  of  copper  and  tin,  probably  because 
they  were  bright  and  readily  seen  in  the  earth.  At  first  they  were  looked  on  only 
as  playthings.  Later,  they  were  dropped  in  the  fire  by  someone,  and  it  was 
seen  that  they  became  soft  in  the  heat,  and  then  very  hard  when  they  got  cold 
again,  so  men  got  the  idea  of  using  them  in  place  of  wood  and  stone  for  ploughs 
and  instruments  of  war.  But  copper  and  tin  by  themselves  were  not  as  good  for 
this   purpose  as  copper  and   tin    mixed,   and   the   second   step   was   to   put   them 


together  to  make  the  new  metal  '  bronze.'  When  men  got  metals,  existence  was 
greatly  changed,  because  ploughing  became  better  and  less  hard  to  do,  and  they 
made  instruments  of  war  which  were  much  sharper  and  stronger  and  simpler  to 
make  use  of  than  those  of  stone  and  wood.  This  was  the  start  of  those  foolish  days 
when  fighting  came  to  be  looked  on  as  something  great  and  beautiful,  and  though 
wars  were  made  only  by  kings  and  gods,  the  common  men  got  used  to  doing  the 
fighting.    Happily,  some  of  us  are  a  little  wiser  now. 

Everyone  was  clear  about  the  geography  of  the  place  where  his  group  of 
people  were,  and  the  seagoing  peoples  had  a  little  bit  more  knowledge  ;  but 
common  men  did  not  go  on  journeys  as  we  do  now,  and  there  were  no  maps  of 
other  countries,  so  no  one  had  much  idea  of  where  his  country  was  in  relation  to 
other  parts  of  the  earth. 


If  you  take  the  direction  of  the  little  ships  starting  from  Egypt,  which  is  to  be  seen  as 
a  small  white  space  in  the  lower  picture  on  the  right, you  will  see  that  some  of  them  go  south 
of  Italy,  through  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar,  up  the  English  Channel,  through  the  Skager 
Rack  and  into  the  Baltic  Sea.  Others,  starting  from  the  same  place,  go  through  the 
Dardanelles  into  the  Black  Sea. 

The  men  who  went  across  country  up  the  great  rivers  whose  names  I  have  given, 
had  to  take  their  goods  over  the  land  from  the  Rhone  to  the  Rhine,  the  Danube  to  the 
Elbe,  the  Dneister  to  the  Vistula,  and  the  Dnieper  to  the  Niemen. 

In  the  two  little  pictures  at  the  top  you  will  see  one  boat  sailing  on  the  sea,  and  another, 
which  has  no  sails,  being  taken  up  a  river  by  men  working  '  oars.' 


The  first  men  to  get  to  a  high  level  of  development,  and  who  gave  much  thought  to 
general  things  were  the  Egyptians,  living  on  the  great  river  Nile  which  goes  from 
the  middle  of  Africa  to  the  Mediterranean  Sea.  Their  geography  was  that  of  the  river 
basin  of  the  Nile,  round  which  are  sand  wastes  and  sea,  though  later  on  their  ships 
went  to  the  east  end  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  to  the  edges  of  Somaliland. 

The  Egyptians  had  a  theory  that  the  sky  was  resting  on  four  supports,  which 
were  the  air,  and  that  under  the  earth  were  caves  in  which  the  dead  were  living. 
These  men  were  interested  in  '  astronomy,'  or  the  science  of  the  skies,  and  their 
well-being  was  dependent  on  the  river  Nile  coming  up  over  its  sides  at  a  certain 
time  so  that  their  fields  were  made  fertile.  They  saw  that  the  sun  and  moon 
and  stars  had  an  effect  on  this  river  which  gave  them  their  food,  so  they  made 
gods  of  natural  forces,  and  made  up  stories  about  what  they  did,  as  if  they  were 
men  and  women.  They  made  Ra  and  Osiris  the  gods  of  the  living  and  the  dead,  and 
they  made  a  number  of  others. 

The  Kings,  or  '  Pharaohs,'  of  the  Egyptians  were  looked  on  as  gods,  and  said 
to  be  the  sons  of  Ra. 

The  Egyptians  made  great  pointed  stone  structures  with  three  sides  named 
'  pyramids,'  In  which  the  dead  Pharaohs  were  put.  You  may  still  see  them  if  you  go 
to  Egypt,  and  they  are  very  strange  and  beautiful,  but  thousands  of  poor  men  gave 
all  their  existences  to  the  work  of  building  them,  which  was  very  shocking. 

The  lower  part  of  Egypt,  near  the  sea,  is  named  the  '  Delta'  of  the  Nile, 
because  it  is  between  two  mouths  of  the  river,  and  its  form  is  somewhat  like  that  of 
the  Greek  letter  of  that  name.  Here  all  the  best  earth  is  washed  down  when  the 
water  is  at  its  highest,  and  the  grain  is  the  best  in  the  country.  The  unfertile  land 
on  the  two  sides  of  the  Nile  is  nothing  but  wastes  of  sand,  and  all  the  pyramids  and 
'temples'  (or  churches)  have  been  polished  and  rubbed  for  hundreds  of  years  by 
the  clouds  of  sand  which  come  blowing  across  them  from  the  Sahara,  which  is  the 
greatest  of  all  the  sand-wastes. 


Even  as  early  as  6176  years  back  the  Egyptians  made  calendars,  not  in  the 
sense  of  simply  painting  pictures  to  put  on  them,  as  we  do,  but  in  the  sense  of 
working  out  the  list  of  days  and  months.  What  is  named  the  '  calendar  year '  of 
365  days  was  the  invention  of  the  Egyptians,  and  it  was  a  very  complex  thing  to  get 
worked  out,  because  it  was  all  dependent  on  the  sun.  We  make  use  of  their  system 
even  now. 

The  discovery  of  a  way  of  getting  to  China  was  made  about  2,000  B.C.,  and  it 
then  came  to  the  knowledge  of  the  Egyptians  that  the  Chinese  Emperors  had  a 
ritual  existence  like  the  Pharaohs  of  Egypt,  and  were  looked  on,  like  them,  as  Sons 
of  the  Sun. 


It  is  not  hard  to  see  why  the  Delta  of  the  Nile  has  been  given  the  Greek  name  for 
4  D.'  It  is  quite  like  that  letter  in  form.  The  two  pyramids,  which  are  with  the  '  Sphinx  ' 
(the  great  stone  form  of  an  animal  with  a  woman's  head)  in  the  middle  picture,  are  seen  in 
their  true  position  a  little  lower  down  than  the  Delta. 

One  of  the  ships  is  sailing  down  the  Nile,  and  the  other  is  being  sent  forward  by 
oars.  The  picture  to  the  right  is  of  a  fertile  place  in  the  sand  waste.  The  other  pictures 
are  of  goods  being  taken  off  a  ship,  and  fruit  and  other  things  being  taken  to  an  Egyptian 
man  and  woman. 


Another  group  of  men,  the  Sumerians,  who  had  long  noses,  were  living  by  the 
Persian  Gulf,  which  is  almost  an  inland  sea,  and  which  gets  its  water  from  the  two 
great  rivers,  the  Tigris  and  the  Euphrates.  When  they  were  not  forced  into  fighting, 
these  men  of  Sumeria  were  working  hard  watering  their  land  and  planting  seed. 

The  two  great  Empires  of  Assyria  and  Babylonia  on  these  two  rivers  came  a 
little  later.  It  was  in  Babylon  that  the  noted  hanging  gardens,  which  were  gardens 
on  stages  supported  by  arches  and  stone  uprights,  were  made.  Great  walls  were  put 
up  round  the  towns,  and  horses  were  used  for  pulling  war-carriages.  The  Assyrians 
had  a  great  King  with  the  strange-sounding  name  of  Tiglath  Pileser  III,  and  another 
with  the  almost  equally  good  one  of  Assur-Nazir-Pal,  whose  art  experts  did  the 
most  beautiful  designs  cut  in  stone.  If  you  go  to  the  British  Museum  you  will  be 
able  to  see  what  an  interesting  time  they  had  in  Assyria  in  those  days— though  it 
was  not  such  a  good  time  for  the  animals,  chiefly  '  lions,'  they  went  after. 

All  the  east  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea— Egypt,  Arabia,  and  the  Persian  Gulf- 
was  now  Geography,  and  if  you  had  been  Egyptians,  Sumerians,  Babylonians,  or 
Assyrians  in  those  days,  your  experience  would  not  have  been  limited  to  the 
doings  of  your  special  group,  or  town,  or  countryside,  but  you  would  have  had  some 
knowledge  of  the  nations  round  you  with  whom  you  had  been  fighting  or  trading. 

They  would  have  been  only  'outsiders'  to  you— men  from  other  countries, 
with  strange  ways— but  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  you  wouldn't  have  had  a  low  opinion 
of  them  simply  because  they  were  not  of  your  country,  which  is  a  very  foolish 
way  of  looking  at  things.  These  'outsiders  '  would  have  given  you  stories  of  other 
lands,  of  the  sand  wastes  and  woods,  and  rivers  and  inland  waters,  south  of  the  Nile 
or  north  of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates;  or  of  the  great  middle  or  'Mediterranean' 
Sea,  and  the  rough  lands  round  it;  and  possibly  even  stranger  stories  of  a  greater 
sea  further  to  the  west,  which  went  on  and  on  for  ever.  Or  among  those  from  the 
east,  there  would  have  been  talk  of  a  warm  sea  with  land  to  the  south-west,  east, 
and  north,  fertile  and  waste  land,  full  of  sweet-smelling  plants,  covered  with  thick 
woods,  or  dry  with  stone  and  sand.    But  these  would  have  been  only  the  stories  of 


men  who  make  long  journeys,  which  might  not  be  true,  and  certainly  these  far-off 
parts  would  not  have  come  into  the  Geography  of  your  time. 

You  would  have  had  more  knowledge  about  the  stars  away  up  in  the  sky  than 
about  such  places  as  England  and  America,  which  were  not  on  the  map  at  that  time. 
The  stars  would  have  been  in  your  Geography,  but  England  and  America  would  have 
had  no  place  there. 

Horses,  'elephants,'  'camels,'  and  'donkeys'  were  the  animals  used  for 
transport,  and  though  carriages  and  carts  were  used,  and  ships  for  short  sea-journeys, 
these  early  men  and  women  did  most  of  their  trading  inside  their  Empires,  and  it 
was  not  till  later  on  that  long  journeys  were  made,  and  the  discovery  of  more  of 
the  earth  took  place. 


At  the  top  three  Sumerians  are  making  a  long,  narrow  hole  in  the  earth  to  take  water 
to  their  fields. 

In  the  picture  by  this,  the  sun  is  looking  down  on  the  River  Euphrates  on  the 
left  and  the  Tigris  on  the  right.  In  the  middle  Assur-Nazir-Pal  is  going  after  a  lion  round 
the  walls  of  a  town,  and  sending  arrows  into  him  with  his  bow.  Is  it  surprising  that  I  am 
sad  about  the  poor  lions? 

The  other  pictures  are  of  a  horse  pulling  a  carriage,  an  elephant,  two  camels,  donkeys 
with  goods  on  their  backs,  and  boats. 


8 

The  first  traders  to  make  regular  business  journeys,  as  far  as  we  have  any 
knowledge,  were  men  living  round  the  Mediterranean  Sea  and  on  the  islands  there, 
and  the  earliest  of  all  were  the  Cretans.  For  hundreds  of  years  they  had  no  walls 
round  their  towns,  because  they  were  on  an  island  named  Crete,  and  there  was  no 
one  to  make  attacks  on  them.  But  when  their  trade  got  greater  they  sent  colonies 
to  the  land  near  them,  and  then  they  had  to  put  up  great  walls  to  keep  off  the  other 
groups,  who  were  ready  to  go  to  war  with  them  because  they  were  better  off— in  the 
same  way  as  today  we  have  trained  armies  and  sea-forces  because  of  our  fears  of 
one  another. 

The  Cretans  had  sailing-ships,  which  had  to  be  moved  by  oars  when  there  was 
no  wind  in  the  right  direction— because  in  those  days  sails  would  only  take  the  ship 
before  the  wind.  They  went  up  and  down  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  learning  all  the 
Geography  of  the  land  near  the  sea  and  of  the  islands,  and  which  rivers  it  was  possible 
for  ships  to  go  up,  and  where  there  was  trade  to  be  had  from  the  Straits  of 
Gibraltar  to  Palestine. 

Then  came  the  Phoenicians,  who  put  up  the  town  of  Carthage  in  North  Africa 
in  850  B.C.,  about  100  years  before  the  building  of  Rome,  and  about  500  years  before 
Alexander  of  Greece  took  his  army  into  North  India.  It  was  the  Phoenicians  who 
first  went  sailing  round  Africa.  This  was  a  great  journey  of  discovery,  and  the 
Phoenicians  took  three  years  to  make  it.  Every  spring  they  went  on  land  and  put 
seed  into  the  earth,  and  did  not  go  on  again  till  the  grain  had  been  cut  and  they  had 
enough  food  for  the  winter.  In  addition  the  Phoenicians  went  through  the  Straits  of 
Gibraltar  and  up  the  side  of  Spain,  and  made  the  discovery  of  England— a  rough 
country  covered  with  woods  and  very  wet,  but  where  tin  was  to  be  had  in  the  south. 
If  you  go  to  Cornwall  you  will  see  great  earthworks  round  a  rough  headland,  which 
was  one  of  the  trading  stations  of  this  time.   It  is  at  Treen  and  Dinas,  near  Land's  End. 

When  I  said  they  made  the  discovery  of  England  I  was  going  a  little  far,  because 
the  Phoenicians  got  no  more  knowledge  of  England  than  they  did  of  Africa,  and 
hundreds  of  years  went  by  before  anything  more  came  to  light  than  the  fact  that  in 


the  Atlantic  were  islands  where  cloth  might  be  exchanged  for  tin— because  the  men 
there  had  no  money,  and  Woolworth's  was  a  later  invention. 

Most  important  among  the  Greeks  from  the  point  of  view  of  geography  was 
Alexander  the  Great,  who  was  six  years  journeying  with  his  army  through  Persia,  by 
the  Caspian  Sea,  through  Turkestan,  down  into  India  and  back  again,  sometimes  in 
ships  which  were  made  on  the  way,  and  sometimes  on  foot.  But  he  was  fighting 
most  of  the  time,  so  he  didn't  get  much  knowledge  about  anything  but  elephants, 
though  one  may  still  come  across  the  stamp  of  Greek  art  and  learning  among  the 
nations  he  overcame. 


8 

The  three  top  pictures  give  us  some  idea  of  the  strange  clothing  of  the  Cretans  and 
how  small  they  were  round  the  middle. 

The  middle  picture  is  a  Cornish  trading  station,  and  the  Phoenicians  are  coming 
to  the  land  in  their  ships.  On  the  right  they  are  exchanging  cloth  for  tin.  On  the  left  they 
are  turning  over  the  earth  somewhere  in  Africa,  to  get  their  grain  planted. 

Under  these  you  see  part  of  Alexander's  army  going  to  India  and  back. 


9 

The  Romans,  though  they  took  a  long  time  about  it,  were  responsible  for  the 
second  discovery  of  Europe,  part  of  Asia,  and  North  Africa. 

A  number  of  very  important  events  took  place  under  Roman  kings,  the 
Roman  '  Republic*  (which  was  the  second  stage  in  their  political  development,  when 
they  had  no  kings),  and  the  Roman  Empire.  They  made  roads,  though,  strange  as  it 
may  seem,  men  had  got  on  quite  well  without  roads  before.  They  made  bridges  for 
persons,  named  '  viaducts,'  and  bridges  of  another  sort  named  'aqueducts  '  for  taking 
water  to  the  towns ;  and  places  for  their  dead  named  '  catacombs,'  and  fighting 
Instruments  named  'catapults'  (which  are  quite  different  things  though  they  have 
somewhat  the  same  sound);  and  great  walls,  and  'circuses'  where  they  had 
competitions  and  amusements ;  and  Roman  law  and  Roman  lettering.  They  had 
short  skirts  like  Scotch  Highlanders,  and  they  were  very,  very  serious  about  it  all. 

In  the  year  140  A.D.  an  astronomy  expert  of  Alexandria,  named  Ptolemy, 
made  the  discovery  that  the  earth  was  a  ball  (and  not  an  'oblate  spheroid,'  like  an 
orange,  as  present-day  experts  say),  and  that  it  was  one-sixth  smaller  than  it  in  fact  is. 
And  for  more  than  fourteen  hundred  years  men  took  him  to  be  right.  This  was  not 
Important  in  Roman  times,  but  we  will  see  later  what  effect  it  had  on  Marco  Polo. 

The  strangest  thing  about  this  time— long,  long  before  the  invention  of  such 
things  as  the  Post  Office,  Telegrams,  Telephone,  or  Radio,  when  books  about  journeys 
were  very  uncommon  and  not  very  certain  of  their  facts— was  that  one  half  of  the 
earth  which  gave  any  thought  to  things  at  all  was  Roman  and  the  other  half  Chinese. 
The  Roman  Empire  took  in  all  Europe,  North  Africa,  and  part  of  Asia  as  far  as  the 
Euphrates  River;  and  the  Chinese  Empire  went  from  the  Pacific  through  Tibet  as  far 
west  as  Turkestan,  but  they  were  little  more  than  conscious  of  the  existence  of  one 
another. 

They  were  taken  up  with  their  special  interests,  the  Chinese  with  the  organ- 
ization of  a  great  complex  and  peace-loving  society,  in  which  the  arts  were  more 
beautiful  than  ever  before  or  after,  and  war  and  military  men  were  looked  down 
on  ;  the  Romans  with  their  strong  desire  for  expansion  and  Empire,  in  which 
fighting  and  army  were  the  chief  things. 


Between  the  farthest  limits  of  these  two  Empires  was  a  great  stretch  of 
rough  unfertile  country  which  had  no  attraction  for  the  one  side  or  the  other,  so 
their  expansion  went  on  as  far  as  this  in  the  direction  of  one  another,  and  then  came 
to  a  stop.  And  when  they  got  as  far  as  they  were  able  to  in  other  directions  they 
put  up  great  walls  to  keep  out  the  violent  men  living  to  the  north.  You 
will  probably  never  see  the  Great  Wall  of  China,  it's  a  very  long  way  off;  but  in 
England  you  have  only  to  go  up  to  Northumberland  to  see  bits  of  Hadrian's  Wall, 
which  was  put  up  to  keep  out  the  Picts,  who  were  the  most  war-loving  group  in 
Britain  at  the  time. 

The  discovery  of  almost  all  Africa,  all  of  America,  north  and  south,  Australasia, 
and  a  great  part  of  north  Asia  had  still  to  be  made,  because  we  are  talking  of  almost 
2,000  years  back. 


Here  we  have  an  aqueduct,  or  water-bridge,  and  a  'circus,'  or  amusement  place,  and 
a  viaduct,  or  high  bridge  over  a  river.  Have  you  any  idea  what  sort  of  amusement  place  a 
circus  was  ? 

Two  persons  with  a  light  are  going  down  a  catacomb,  and  other  persons  are  walking 
in  the  street  over  them. 

The  catapult  has  let  off  a  net  full  of  stones,  and  a  man  in  the  Roman  army  is  watching 
where  they  go. 

Ptolemy  is  on  the  left,  looking  at  the  stars,  and  the  Great  Wall  of  China  is  on  the 
right;   and   in   between  are  a  Chinese  and  a  Roman,  who  have  no  idea  of  the  existence  of 
one  another. 

The  map  in  the  middle  is  of  the  Roman  Roads  near  Rome,  and  of  the  rest-houses. 


10 

The  Romans  had  a  wider  knowledge  of  Geography  than  the  men  they  overcame, 
and  the  Roman  buildings  have  generally  kept  up  longer.  We  still  see  their  military 
stations,  or  '  camps,'  on  the  tops  of  slopes  with  great  earthworks  round  them  to  keep 
off  attacks.  Everywhere  you  go,  when  you  see  great  walls  of  earth  against  the  sky-line 
on  top  of  a  slope,  you  will  probably  be  right  in  saying  "Ah,  that  is  a  Roman  camp." 
Only  don't  be  so  certain  when,  for  example,  you  see  '  Maiden  Castle '  near 
Dorchester,  England,  because  it  was  started  long  before  the  Romans. 

Geography,  or  the  position  of  the  land— the  great  mountains  by  which  the 
Chinese  Empire  was  shut  in,  and  the  thick  woods  of  Germany  which  put  limits  to 
the  expansion  of  the  Roman— all  these  things  had  their  effect  on  the  behaviour 
and  development  of  man.  The  great  'steppes'  of  Russia  and  Mongolia  (which 
are  not  the  same  thing  as  steps,  being  flat  land  without  trees,  at  different  levels) 
were  the  grasslands  of  the  cows  and  horses  of  men  who  were  named  '  nomads,' 
because  they  kept  moving  from  place  to  place— only  these  groups  didn't  go  about 
trading  in  cheap  ornaments  and  firewood  like  the  equally  nomad  'gypsies'  we  have 
in  England. 

It  was  only  when  the  Roman  Empire  had  been  undermined  by  the  love  of 
comfort  and  pleasure,  and  become  feeble,  that  these  nomads,  who  were  still  almost 
like  animals,  came  down  on  Europe,  driving  before  them  everyone  who  had  got  to 
a  somewhat  higher  stage  of  development.  They  even  went  pushing  down  into  China. 
Their  effect  on  China  was  to  give  her  a  new  driving-power  and  make  her  stronger 
than  before,  because  the  newcomers  saw  the  attraction  of  her  way  of  living  and 
came  to  have  a  love  for  it  themselves.  So  the  Chinese  Empire  went  on  its  quiet  way 
making  more  and  more  things  which  were  beautiful  and  of  use.  But  Europe  was  not 
united  like  China  by  a  deeply-rooted  love  of  art  and  science,  and  the  Goths  and 
Huns,  as  these  incoming  groups  were  named,  had  everything  their  way,  and  a  very 
rough  way  it  was. 

Nomads  are  so  unused  to  resting  that  the  only  time  they  are  seated  is  when 
they  are  on  horseback,  and  they  are  never  in  one  place  long  enough  to  be  any  good 


to  anyone;   and  it's  my  belief  that  these  Goths  and  Huns  had  no  idea  where  they 
were  going  to.    Anyhow,  they  were  cruel  and  dirty  and  disgusting. 

A  short  time  before  the  Normans  overcame  England— in  1066,  as  the  history 
books  say— certain  Norsemen  from  Norway  and  Iceland  made  a  great  discovery, 
possibly  the  greatest  discovery  in  geography  of  all  time,  though  no  one  had  any 
knowledge  of  it,  or  if  they  did  it  went  from  their  memories  in  the  years  which  came 
after.  These  Norsemen,  in  little  open  boats  with  only  one  sail  and  with  16  to  30  oars 
on  a  side,  went  straight  across  the  Atlantic  and  came  to  America.  They  gave  it  the 
name  of  Vineland,  and  they  had  colonies  near  the  sea  in  Nova  Scotia  and  Maine. 
But  there  were  Red  Indians  in  North  America— so  named  to  keep  them  from  getting 
mixed  with  the  brown  Indians  who  are  simply  '  Indians.'  (We  will  see  why  this  is, 
later,  when  we  are  talking  of  Columbus).  And  because  there  were  only  a  very  small 
number  of  Norsemen  there,  they  did  not  go  further  into  the  country,  and  in  time 
their  colonies  were  given  up.  And  so  the  discovery  of  America  had  to  be  made 
again  500  years  later. 


10 

The  Anglo-Saxon  map  of  the  earth  in  the  middle  of  the  page,  made  about  990  A.D., 
is  all  wrong,  as  you  will  see  later  on.  The  British  Isles  are  up  on  the  left,  with 
Spain  pointing  up,  Italy  to  the  east.  All  the  sea  lower  down,  which  is  covered  with  islands, 
is  the  Mediterranean.  The  smaller  one  near  the  top  is  the  Black  Sea,  and  the  little  one  with 
only  one  island  is  the  Caspian.  The  island  in  the  middle  at  the  right  is  Ceylon,  with  the 
Persian  Gulf  and  the  Red  Sea  under  it.  The  River  Nile  is  the  black  thing  which  goes  back 
and  forward  like  a  snake.  Over  it  is  the  Dead  Sea  with  the  Rivers  Tigris  and  Euphrates  to 
the  right  of  it. 

In  the  smaller  pictures  we  have  a  Roman  camp  on  the  top  of  a  slope,  a  German  wood, 
and  a  Russian  steppe.  Then  there  are  some  Goths  or  Huns  burning  a  town,  and  a  Chinese 
town  and  a  seat  named  a  'palanquin'.  Under  these  we  have  the  Norsemen  making  the 
discovery  of  America,  which  is  under  the  sun  going  down  in  the  west. 

c 


rg^Mwa^m 


II 

The  first  man  to  go  on  a  journey  from  the  west  to  the  east  and  then  come 
back  and  make  a  book  about  it— a  thing  which  is  done  so  frequently  now— was 
Marco  Polo,  a  man  from  Venice  who  went  to  Pekin  in  China,  to  the  Emperor 
Kublai  Khan,  in  1272.  This  was  a  very  hard  journey  over  waste  lands  and  mountains, 
taking  months  and  months  to  do.  It  took  such  a  long  time  that  Marco  Polo  got 
quite  mixed  about  his  distances;  he  had  only  Ptolemy's  measures  of  1,132  years 
before  as  his  guide,  and  Ptolemy  had  no  more  idea  than  Marco  that  there  was  any 
land  between  Europe  and  Asia  going  west.  They  had  the  idea  that  there  were  only 
2,500  miles  of  sea,  because  they  had  not  taken  America  into  account,  so  Marco  Polo 
had  to  make  up  the  rest  of  the  distance  round  the  earth  somewhere,  and  he  simply 
put  it  on  to  his  journey. 

Reading  Marco  Polo's  story  is  like  having  a  strange  experience  in  sleep.  He 
gives  accounts  of  great  smiling  stretches  of  fertile  country  all  at  peace,  of  gold 
and  silver,  of  the  beautiful  ornaments  and  clothing  of  the  men  and  women,  and  of 
an  unbroken  line  of  towns  small  and  great. 

Marco  Polo's  experience  gave  the  men  of  Europe  an  idea  of  the  possible  value 
of  journeys  ;  it  was  the  first  detailed  and  first-hand  news  they  had  had  of  that  great 
country  of  China,  which  up  to  that  time  had  been  to  them  only  a  strange,  far-off  land. 

And  then,  almost  two  hundred  years  later,  Christopher  Columbus,  after 
reading  Marco  Polo's  book,  got  the  idea  of  sailing  west  across  the  Atlantic  to  Asia. 
No  one,  as  far  as  he  had  knowledge,  had  gone  farther  out  into  the  Atlantic  than 
to  the  Canary  Islands,  the  Azores,  or  Madeira. 

After  attempting  without  effect  to  get  support  from  all  the  other  kings  and 
queens  of  Europe,  he  at  last  got  the  King  and  Queen  of  Spain,  who  were  named 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  to  give  him  three  small  ships— though  much  greater  than 
those  the  Norsemen  had  had  for  their  journey— and  went  sailing  west.  After  two 
months  and  nine  days  he  came  to  a  land  which  he  naturally  took  to  be  India,  though 


it  was,  in  fact,  America.  And  the  saddest  thing  about  it  was  that  the  true  facts 
never  came  to  his  knowledge,  and  to  the  end  of  his  days  he  went  on  saying  to  every- 
one that  India  was  over  there  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic. 


II 

The  "  Hereford  Map,"  made  in  1280,  is  as  full  of  errors  as  the  last,  but  more  inter- 
esting because  it  puts  in  the  '  Tower  of  Babel,'  of  which  we  have  an  account  in  the  Bible. 
This  you  will  see  at  the  right  of  the  land  in  the  middle,  with  its  top  pointing  sideways  to 
an  island  on  the  outside.  This  island  is  Paradise.  Jerusalem  is  marked  by  a  point  in  a  circle, 
and  the  British  Isles  are  three  separate  islands. 

In  the  first  two  pictures  Marco  Polo  is  about  to  go  on  land  from  a  ship,  that  is,  he 
will  if  the  man  is  able  to  send  the  cord  in  the  right  way;  and  then  he  will  make  a  start  on 
his  long,  long  journey  overland  to  the  town  of  Pekin,  which  is  seen  in  one  of  the  pictures, 
and  to  Yangchow,  which  is  in  another. 

Under  these  are  the  three  stages  in  the  discovery  of  America.  You  may  see  a  bit  of 
the  land  on  the  right,  at  the  back  of  the  sail,  in  the  last  picture. 


CI 


12 

The  Red  Indians  living  in  North  America  were  still  at  the  level  of  the  Stone 
Age,  but  in  Mexico,  which  is  in  the  middle,  and  in  Peru,  which  is  south  of  Mexico 
to  the  west,  there  were  peoples  named  Aztecs  and  Incas  who  were  at  a  high  stage 
of  development  and  very  well-off,  with  beautiful  towns  and  works  of  art.  Unhappily 
for  themselves,  their  mines  of  gold  and  silver  and  jewels  were  a  great  attraction  to 
the  Spaniards  who  came  after  Columbus  ;  and  so  the  poor  Aztecs  and  Incas  were 
overcome,  and  in  time  stamped  out,  and  their  beautiful  countries  were  wasted  by  war. 
All  the  gold  and  silver  of  the  Aztecs  and  Incas  were  taken  away  to  Spain,  and  the 
Spaniards,  becoming  better  and  better  off,  became  at  the  same  time  less  and  less 
good  for  anything— because  when  you  have  everything  money  will  get,  you  frequently 
have  no  desire  to  do  any  work,  and  become  wasters.  The  country  of  the  Incas,  to 
which  we  now  give  the  name  of  Peru,  was  not  naturally  fertile,  but  the  men  living 
there  had  made  it  so  by  working  hard  and  cutting  waterways  through  the  fields,  and 
putting  on  them  the  droppings  of  sea-birds,  which  for  thousands  of  years  had  been 
falling  on  the  islands  near  the  land.  With  the  help  of  these  droppings,  which  are 
named  'guano,'  good  grain  may  be  produced  from  even  the  poorest  land. 

The  Incas  had  no  horses,  because  there  were  no  horses  in  America  before  the 
Europeans  came,  but  they  had  '  llamas.'  These  llamas,  which,  like  the  camel,  are  able 
to  go  without  water  for  weeks  and  months,  took  the  place  of  horses  as  transport 
animals,  and  gave  beautiful  wool  and  hair  for  clothing.  There  were  other  animals, 
'  alpacas,'  '  huanacos,'  and  '  vicunas,'  all  near  relations  of  our  farm  sheep. 

The  Incas  had  their  land  planted  with  '  cocoa,'  tobacco,  Indian  grain,  and 
potatoes,  all  of  which  were  new  to  Europeans,  because  up  to  this  time  they  had  not 
become  smokers,  and  they  didn't  have  potatoes  with  their  meat  as  we  do  now,  because 
the  potato  was  an  American  plant  which  was  not  seen  in  other  countries. 

Even  now,  though  there  are  about  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  families  of 
plants  in  existence,  not  more  than  300  are  produced  for  general  use.  It  is  the  same 
with  the  animals  ;    of  the   'Mollusca'  and  the  '  Articulata  '   (which  are  the  names 


given  by  science  to  fish  with  hard  coverings  and  to  insects)  only  the  '  oyster  '  and 
his  near  relation,  the  '  clam,'  from  the  first,  and  the  bee  and  a  small  number  of 
insects  which  make  silk,  from  the  second,  have  been  made  use  of  by  man  for  his  needs. 

Like  the  men  of  all  early  societies,  those  of  North  and  South  America  were 
not  naturally  war-loving,  and  only  became  so  because  of  the  behaviour  of  other 
nations  to  them.  Coming  in  touch  with  more  complex  societies  has  all  through 
history  had  the  effect  of  making  kind  and  straightforward  men  into  ready  fighters, 
false  and  cruel  in  their  behaviour.     To  me  this  is  a  very  sad  thing,  isn't  it  to  you  ? 


12 

Here  are  some  oysters  with  their  beds  in  the  distance,  because  oysters  do  have  beds. 
Then  there  is  a  worker  bee  and  its  house,  and  the  different  stages  of  a  silkworm's  growth. 
The  little  pictures  are  of  the  sea-birds  of  Peru,  a  llama  ready  for  a  journey,  and  some 
Aztec  churches,  in  one  of  which  a  god  is  seated.  After  that  comes  a  Spaniard  with  no  love 
of  work  smoking  a  long  cigarette,  some  pots  of  cooked  potatoes,  and  the  Incas  running 
away. 


13 


The  discovery  of  North  America  went  on  more  slowly  than  that  of  South 
America  because  there  was  no  gold  or  silver  there,  and  there  is  no  attraction  so 
great  as  money  without  work. 

The  English  and  French  slowly  got  colonies  planted  near  the  sea,  but  they  did 
not  at  first  go  inland. 

After  a  time  the  English  saw  that  the  sea  near  Newfoundland,  which  is  not 
very  deep  but  is  very  cold  and  frequently  covered  with  a  thick  mist,  was  very  good 
for  fishing,  and  this  fishing  was  the  start  of  the  great  British  Empire,  though  that 
may  seem  very  strange  to  you. 

It  was  a  long  time,  naturally,  before  the  discovery  of  North  America  was 
complete,  because  it  is  over  3,000  miles  from  east  to  west.  When  the  Americans 
(as  the  English  living  in  America  were  now  named)  did  get  to  the  other  side,  in  the 
covered  carts  which  were  all  they  had  to  go  in,  they  saw  that  some  of  the  Spaniards 
had  got  there  before  them,  having  come  up  from  the  South.  However,  that  did 
not  keep  them  out. 

There  were  thousands  and  thousands  of  '  bison,'  great  animals  of  the  cow 
family,  whose  food  was  grass,  and  hundreds  and  hundreds  of  Red  Indians  whose  food 
was  the  bison,  and  no  one  had  any  other  food  but  grass  and  bison,  and  possibly  a 
little  fish,  because  the  ploughing  of  the  land  and  the  planting  of  seed  were  only 
started  when  the  Indians  and  bison  had  been  put  to  death  or  forced  into  other  parts 
of  the  country. 

The  babies  of  the  Red  Indians  were  named  '  papooses,'  and  their  mothers  were 
named  'squaws,'  and  every  family  had  its  'wigwam,'  which  was  a  house  made  of  long 
sticks  and  skins,  and  they  made  journeys  by  water  in  'canoes.'  And  the  Red  Indians 
had  a  much  better  knowledge  of  the  geography  of  their  country  than  the  White 
Men  because  they  went  about  all  over  the  country  living  on  bison  and  having  a 
good  time. 

I  feel  quite  sad  about  the  Indians,  and  very,  very  sad  about  the  bison,  which 
have  almost  gone  out  of  existence. 


America  has  the  longest  mountain  range,  and  the  longest  nver,  on  the  earth,  and 
the  Americans  have  a  number  of  things  which,  when  measured  in  inches  or  pounds, 
are  the  greatest  in  existence,  but  these  things  aren't  very  important.  The  mountains 
go  all  the  way  from  the  north-west  of  North  America  to  the  south-west  of  South 
America.  The  chief  ranges  are  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  the  Andes.  Some  of  the 
highest  points  have  beautiful  names,  specially  if  you  say  them  quickly,  like  Cotopaxi, 
Chimborazo,  Aconcagua,  and,  best  of  all,  Popocatapetl  ;  and  some  of  them  are 
volcanoes.  The  longest  river  has  two  names,  because  to  make  it  the  longest  we  have 
to  take  our  boats  from  one  river  into  another.  Its  two  names  are  the  Missouri  and 
Mississippi;  but  if  we  don't  take  the  Missouri  into  account,  which  is  only  a  branch 
river,  then  the  Amazon  in  South  America,  which  is  4,700  miles  long,  is  the  longest 
river  on  the  earth. 


13 

Ortelius's  map,  made  in  1570,  has  far  less  errors  than  the  earlier  ones,  though  he 
went  wrong  in  South  America,  as  you  may  see.  In  the  top  picture  are  some  Amsricans 
going  across  America,  and  the  one  to  the  right  of  it  is  a  part  of  Britain's  sea-power,  but  the 
fishing-boats  are  not  clear  because  of  the  thick  mist.  There  is  no  doubt  which  are  the  bison 
and  Indians,  and  the  squaw  with  the  papoose,  and  the  two  Indians  in  a  canoe.  And  the 
pictures  under  these  are  of  the  four  mountains  I  have  been  talking  about,  and  three  and  a 
half  others,  and  the  longest  river. 


14 

Coming  back  to  the  journeys  of  Europeans,  a  short  time  after  Columbus's 
great  discovery,  a  man  named  Vasco  da  Gama,  in  1497,  went  sailing  round  Africa,  past 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  to  Zanzibar,  and  from  there  to  India.  A  little  later  journeys 
were  made  to  Sumatra,  Java,  Celebes,  and  the  Moluccas,  or  '  Spice  Islands  '  as  they 
were  named  ;  and  trading  stations,  which  were  not  at  all  like  railway  stations,  were 
started  in  India  and  the  islands  on  the  other  side  of  it. 

There  was  little  comfort  in  sailing-ships  in  those  days,  or  for  long  enough  after. 
The  ships  were  dependent  on  any  wind  which  came,  the  men  had  for  food  only  salt 
meat,  or  '  junk,'  and  the  hard  bread  named  '  ship's  biscuit,'  which  was  generally  full 
of  worms.  From  time  to  time  the  sailors  made  violent  attacks  on  their  chiefs, 
or  became  ill  with  a  disgusting  skin  disease  named  '  scurvy.'  And  journeys  took 
months  and  months,  or  even  years. 

Men  went  off  to  positions  in  India  straight  from  school,  and  came  back  years 
later  with  a  growth  of  long  white  hair  on  their  chins  and  no  hair  at  all  on  their  heads, 
full  of  stories  about  their  great  doings,  which  no  one  had  any  belief  in.  But  they  had 
such  numbers  of  black  servants  and  so  much  money  and  such  a  good  opinion  of  them- 
selves that  everyone  had  a  great  respect  for  them. 

The  maps  which  were  made  at  this  time  were  much  more  beautiful  than  our 
maps  today,  but  almost  as  wrong  and  out  of  touch  with  developments.  Our  maps 
frequently  have  fields  and  little  rivers  where  great  roads  and  houses  now  are,  because 
developments  take  place  so  quickly  that  the  map-makers  are  not  able  to  keep  up 
with  them.  The  old  maps  did  not  do  this  sort  of  thing,  but  they  only  gave  the  outlines 
of  the  sea  and  land  as  they  had  an  idea  they  might  be,  and  round  about  they  put  the 
heads  of  fat  little  boys  blowing  violently  as  a  sign  of  which  way  the  wind  went,  and 
strange  fish  breathing  water  through  their  noses.  They  put  in  the  sun  and  stars,  and 
they  made  pictures  of  ships  sailing,  and  winged  fish,  and  all  sorts  of  strange-looking 
animals,  in  the  place  where  the  sea  came.  All  round  the  edges  of  the  land  they  put 
names  of  headlands  and  towns  and  harbours,  and  pictures  of  great  military  buildings, 


and  the  land  itself  was  ornamented  with  snakes  and  story-book  animals,  and  men 
fighting  or  walking  about  without  their  heads.  It  was  all  very  strange  and  interesting, 
and  had  very  little  to  do  with  Geography. 

The  early  maps  were  not  very  safe  guides,  but  the  stories  of  the  men  who 
came  back  from  strange  places  were  even  less  so.  But  those  who  don't  go  about 
much  are  generally  ready  to  give  belief  to  anything.  At  one  time  men  had  no  doubt 
that  there  were  '  unicorns,'  though  they  had  never  even  come  across  the  name  of 
the  llama,  and  if  they  had  seen  a  4  giraffe  '  looking  down  on  them  they  would  have 
gone  running  for  miles.  The  first  men  who  went  to  the  West  African  woods  were 
greatly  troubled  by  the  '  gorillas,'  because  they  weren't  certain  if  these  great  man- 
like monkeys  were  men  or  not. 


14 

In  the  top  picture  a  sailor  is  having  a  meal  with  the  worms.  Then  we  have  Vasco  da 
Gama's  ship  and  a  trading  station.  At  the  sides  you  will  see  the  first  and  last  stages  in  the 
history  of  an  Englishman  in  India. 

The  three  lowest  pictures  are  of  a  unicorn,  a  gorilla,  and  a  giraffe.  As  to  the  round 
one,  I  have  said  quite  enough. 


15 

After  the  discovery  of  America,  journeys  across  the  sea  became  common,  and 
all  sorts  of  goods  from  other  countries  were  taken  back  by  ships  to  Portugal,  Spain, 
France,  Holland,  and  England.  Companies  were  formed  for  trading  in  different  parts 
of  the  earth,  and  chief  among  them  was  the  British  East  India  Company,  which  had 
its  special  line  of  ships  and  its  army,  and  became  so  important  that  in  time  it  was 
owner  of  an  Empire  much  greater,  and  with  more  persons  in  it,  than  that  of  England. 

One  very  bad  thing  which  was  the  outcome  of  all  the  new  discoveries  was  the 
'slave'  trade.  Someone  got  the  idea  of  making  money  by  getting  poor  simple  black 
men  in  Africa  and  shipping  them  across  to  America  for  work  in  the  cotton  fields 
which  had  been  started  there.  The  owners  of  the  cotton  fields  were  ready  to  give 
high  prices  for  strong  and  healthy  men  and  women,  who  then  became  their  property 
and  were  made  use  of  like  animals.  No  one  at  that  time  saw  how  cruel  and  wrong 
this  was,  or  gave  any  thought  to  the  feelings  of  the  poor  black  men  who  were  taken 
from  their  countries  and  families  and  made  slaves  in  this  way.  So  for  almost  250 
years  this  shocking  trade  went  on.  And  when  the  blacks  were  not  taken  off  near 
the  sea  by  a  band  of  Europeans,  the  Arabs  got  them  inland  and  made  them  their 
slaves.    It  is  not  surprising  that  the  black  men  were  all  the  time  running  away. 

Then  Captain  Cook  went  all  the  way  round  the  earth  in  a  sailing-ship.  In  the  old 
days  everyone  had  the  belief  that  the  earth  was  flat— they  don't  seem  to  have  said 
anything  about  what  took  place  if  you  got  to  the  edge  and  took  a  step  over  it. 
Captain  Cook  made  the  discovery  of  Australia,  or  the  edge  of  Australia,  because, 
like  America,  it  was  some  time  before  men  went  deep  into  the  heart  of  the  country. 
The  men  and  women  living  in  Australia  at  that  time  were  at  a  very  early  stage  of 
development,  like  the  Old  Stone  men,  and  their  food  was  chiefly  insects  and  other 
disgusting  things.  In  Australia  there  were  strange  animals  which  were  not  to  be 
seen  in  any  other  place,  such  as  the  '  kangaroo'  and  the  'duck-billed  platypus.'  The 
Australians,  who  went  about  with  nothing  on,  made  instruments  of  curved  sticks,  named 
'  boomerangs,'  which  they  sent  at  birds  and  animals.  If  the  boomerang  didn't  get 
anything  on  the  way,  it  came  back  again  to  the  person  who  had  sent  it,  like  the  little 
cardboard  ones  some  of  you  may  have  made— but  ours  don't  come  back  every  time. 


The  discovery  of  Tasmania  took  place  about  the  same  time,  and  here  the  men 
and  women  were  at  the  same  low  stage  of  development  as  the  Australians,  and  no 
better-looking.  All  these  Tasmanians  and  Australians,  when  they  put  on  clothing  like 
the  Europeans,  got  colds  and  then  chest  trouble,  and  in  a  short  time  most  of  them  were 
dead,  so  that  now  there  are  only  a  small  number  in  existence.  In  addition  to  this, 
they  were  poisoned  by  the  early  white  men  who  went  there,  as  rats  are  poisoned 
by  us. 

The  New  Zealanders  were  a  much  better-looking  people,  with  more  brains, 
but  though  they  had  natural  warm  springs  in  which  they  might  have  had  baths,  as  I 
said  in  the  opening  pages  of  this  book,  they  were  happier  dirty. 


15 

Mercator  was  the  greatest  of  all  map  makers,  because  he  was  the  first  to  give  a 
picture  of  the  round  earth  crushed  flat,  and  the  outcome  was  much  truer  to  facts  than 
ever  before.  He  made  the  map  given  here  in  1569.  The  only  thing  needing  to  be  said  about 
the  other  pictures  is  that  the  Australian  '  aborigine  '  (which  is  the  name  given  to  the 
earliest  men  of  any  country)  has  sent  his  two  boomerangs  at  the  duck-billed  platypus  (on 
the  left)  and  the  kangaroo  (on  the  right)  for  nothing. 


16 

The  discovery  of  a  great  part  of  Asia  was  by  this  time  being  made,  because  the 
Cossacks,  a  mixed  group  of  men  from  different  parts,  were  little  by  little  pushing  back 
the  Mongol  Tartars  from  one  end  of  Siberia  to  the  other.  The  geography  of  Siberia  is 
flat  and  uninteresting,  and  but  for  the  discovery  now  and  then  of  a  '  mammoth '  (an 
animal  no  longer  in  existence)  which  had  been  dead  for  thousands  of  years,  fixed  in 
the  ice-hard  earth  of  an  old  river-bed,  they  came  across  nothing  much  to  put  in  a 
letter.  Anyhow  men  didn't  send  letters  very  frequently  in  those  days,  because  there 
was  no  safe  post-office  system. 

In  Europe  the  only  changes  in  geography  which  took  place  were  caused  by  the 
fight  against  the  North  Sea  made  by  the  Dutch,  and  by  the  draining  of  the  '  polders,' 
as  the  new  land  taken  from  the  sea  was  named.  If  you  have  a  long  week-end  and 
some  money  in  the  bank,  go  to  Walcheren  Island— it  is  not  an  island  at  all— which  was 
at  one  time  under  the  sea ;  that  will  give  you  some  idea  of  the  great  undertakings  of 
the  Dutch  and  the  hard  work  they  put  into  them.  Another  good  idea  is  to  go  and 
have  a  look  at  the  walls  for  keeping  back  the  water  at  Hwang-Ho,  but  that  may 
seem  a  little  far  off. 

With  the  numbers  of  persons  increasing  everywhere,  specially  in  Europe,  woods 
were  cut  down  and  poor  land  was  ploughed  and  food  forced  from  it,  rivers  were 
shut  into  narrower  beds,  and  wet  land,  such  as  that  in  Lincolnshire  and  other  river- 
basins,  was  drained  and  farmed.  All  the  different  sorts  of  grain,  such  as  'wheat,' 
'  barley,'  maize,'  and  rice,  were  now  to  be  seen  covering  a  great  part  of  the  earth. 
Some  of  them  were  quite  new  in  certain  places,  though  wheat  has  been  planted  for  at 
least  6,000  years,  as  has  been  made  clear  by  uncovering  old  towns  and  fields. 

Transport  of  goods  from  one  place  to  another,  which  was  only  possible  at  first 
in  ships,  now  slowly  became  common  on  land,  where  roads  had  become  necessary, 
and  horses  and  carts  were  taking  the  place  of  the  more  natural  and  common  man- 
power.  Even  now  in  Austria,  Italy,  Switzerland,  and  France,  men  and  women  take 


great  masses  of  grain  on  their  backs;  and  the  harbour-workers  or  porters  in  all 
great  sea-towns  take  as  much  as  220  pounds  again  and  again  over  short  distances, 
though  generally  not  more  than  fifty  to  seventy-five  over  long  ones. 


16 

A  Cossack  is  pushing  back  a  Tartar  in  two  of  the  top  pictures  and  in  the  third  the 
Tartar  has  come  across  a  mammoth  almost  covered  by  the  earth. 

In  the  middle  picture  you  see  the  way  in  which  the  sea  has  been  pushed  back  by  the 
Dutch,  and  how  they  have  made  walls  of  sand  supported  by  sticks  and  stones,  and  how  they 
are  getting  the  new  land  drained.  The  wind  machine  is  for  pumping  out  the  water  which 
comes  draining  through. 

The  other  pictures  are  of  land  being  ploughed  and  grain  being  transported. 


17 

Frequent  attempts  were  made  at  the  discovery  of  the  north-west  sea-way, 
which  was  said  to  go  across  the  north  of  Canada  into  the  Pacific,  and  to  make  possible 
shorter  journeys  from  Europe  to  China.  But  there  was,  in  fact,  no  such  way,  so  the 
men  who  went  looking  for  it  were  rewarded  only  by  the  discovery  of  Hudson  Bay. 

It  is  hard  for  us  to  have  any  idea  of  the  surprise  and  interest  caused  by  these 
early  discoveries,  because  we  are  used  today  to  getting  our  news  from  all  parts  of  the 
earth  by  radio,  to  seeing  pictures  in  our  newspapers  of  far-off  events  only  two  or 
three  hours  after  they  have  taken  place,  to  going  in  great  steamships  for  a  week  or 
two's  pleasure  through  what  were  at  this  time  seas  full  of  dangers,  where  outlaws 
and  great  sea-animals  might  come  into  view  at  any  minute.  It  is  hard  to  put  ourselves 
in  the  place  of  a  Spaniard  or  Dutchman,  a  Portuguese,  or  an  Englishman,  living  in  the 
sixteen  hundreds  and  starting  off  to  make  the  discovery  of  new  land  in  a  little  five- 
hundred-ton  sailing-ship,  with  very  poor  maps  and  no  one  to  get  help  from  but 
himself,  and  no  good  harbour,  safe  from  wind  and  weather,  at  every  stopping  place. 
At  times  the  base  of  his  ship  got  covered  with  a  green  growth,  and  had  to  be  taken 
up  on  to  the  sands— if  there  were  any— to  have  the  green  coating  taken  off.  And  while 
this  was  being  done,  he  might  be  attacked  by  aborigines,  or  get  some  disease. 

The  Europe  of  those  days  was  all  farm  land  and  woods,  with  only  very  small 
towns.  There  were  no  railways,  and  only  a  small  number  of  public  carriages  pulled  by 
horses,  so  that  the  journey  from,  say,  London  to  Edinburgh,  which  now  takes  about 
eight  hours,  then  took  an  equal  number  of  days. 

Most  persons  never  went  further  than  to  the  nearest  town,  and  every  part  of 
the  country  had  its  special  form  of  the  language,  which  was  like  a  strange  tongue  to 
anyone  coming  from  a  distance.  The  workers  still  went  about  with  nothing  on  their 
feet,  or  in  shoes  of  wood.  There  were  almost  no  drains,  and  no  one  ever  had  a 
bath  or  made  use  of  a  toothbrush. 


17 

The  first  and  third  of  these  pictures  are  a  little  sad,  because  a  man  who  was  looking 
for  the  North-west  Sea-Way  has  only  come  across  a  *  Polar  bear,'  and  because  being  made 
to  go  walking  off  a  board  into  the  sea  isn't  a  very  happy  ending.  The  second  one  is  of  two 
sea  outlaws,  or  '  pirates,'  as  they  are  commonly  pictured. 

Then  we  have  a  little  sea-side  walled  town,  and  a  ship  being  made  clean  while  three 
Indians  are  watching  from  a  distance.  The  London  to  Edinburgh  carriage  is  going  slowly 
through  the  three  lower  pictures. 

The  middle  picture  is  of  a  ship  sailing  through  unmapped  seas  full  of  unseen  masses 
of  sharp  stone  in  addition  to  the  ones  of  which  you  see  the  points  coming  up  out  of  the  sea. 


D2 


18 

The  Earth  had  become  a  much  wider  place  in  the  sixteen  and  seventeen 
hundreds.  And  it  was  going  on  getting  wider,  because  men  had  given  up  looking  on 
their  special  mountain-side,  or  town,  or  country,  as  the  only  one;  and  though 
their  kings  and  rulers  did  their  best  to  keep  them  from  using  their  heads  very 
much,  they  were  interested  in  meeting  men  who  had  been  about,  and  in  hearing 
stories  of  other  lands  across  the  seas.  A  great  number  of  their  friends  and  relations 
had  gone  from  England  to  other  countries,  like  those  who  went  to  America  in  the 
"Mayflower,"  or  had  been  sent  there  by  the  government,  like  the  prisoners  who 
were  taken  to  Botany  Bay ;  and  some  of  the  men  who  had  been  overseas  came  back 
again  with  a  new  air  of  being  free  and  independent  which  was  somewhat  troubling  to 
those  who  had  not  been  away.  Further,  they  were  able,  or  seemed  to  be  able,  to 
make  money  much  more  quickly  and  with  less  work— though  this  was  not  true  of 
all  of  them. 

A  number  of  the  Dutch  had  made  a  place  for  themselves  in  South  Africa,  which 
was  healthy  and  had  good  land  for  farming  ;  and  the  French  had  done  the  same  in 
Canada,  though  only  on  the  east  side.  The  Red  Indians  had  been  pushed  back  by  the 
French,  and  the  South  Africans  by  the  Dutch.  These  first  colonies,  together  with 
those  in  America,  Australia,  India,  and  New  Zealand,  were  not  all  made  at  the  same 
time,  but  came  into  existence  between  1600  and  1800. 

In  the  year  1800  discovery  had  still  to  be  made  of  a  great  part  of  North  and 
South  America,  of  which  only  the  Indians  had  any  knowledge.  Almost  all  of  Africa 
but  Egypt,  South  Africa,  and  one  or  two  places  near  the  sea  had  still  never  seen  a 
European,  and  Australia  was  still  in  the  same  sad  condition— at  least,  that  was  the 
European  idea  of  the  poor  Africans  and  Australians  who  had  not  had  the  chance  of 
learning  our  ways. 

So  far  no  one  had  got  to  the  North  and  South  Poles,  which  are  not  '  poles ' 
(or  upright  rods)  at  all,  but  places  in  the  snow  on  the  top  and  base  of  the  earth. 
The  only  way  of  being  certain  when  you  get  to  them  is  by  looking  at  certain  stars 
through  a  special  instrument. 


18 

The  three  top  pictures  are  of  the  first  white  men  in  Canada.  The  railing  is  to  keep  off 
the  animals  and  Red  Indians.  In  the  three  lowest  pictures  some  white  men  in  South  Africa 
are  troubled  by  smoke  signs  made  by  Africans,  so  they  have  made  their  animals  get  down 
at  the  back  of  their  carts. 

The  three  middle  pictures  are  of  Bristol,  and  the  man  landing  from  his  journey  has 
put  on  his  best  coat  for  the  event. 


19 

Between  1800  and  1900  came  the  discovery  of  all  the  rest  of  the  earth.  Rail- 
ways were  made  between  all  great  towns,  and  a  network  of '  telegraph  '  and  telephone 
wires  were  stretched  over  the  land  ;  great  steamships  went  ploughing  through  the 
sea  from  harbour  to  harbour.  Men  came  across  gold  first  in  America,  and  then  in 
Australia,  and  then  in  America  again,  and  went  running  from  this  place  to  that  in  the 
hope  of  making  money  quickly.  Coal  and  iron  were  taken  in  great  amounts  from 
mines  under  the  earth,  chiefly  in  Europe  and  America.  Works  were  put  up,  and 
round  them  great,  dirty,  unbeautiful  towns  came  into  being,  and  those  who  were 
well-off  became  very  well-off,  and  those  who  were  poor  became  very  poor. 

Great  inland  waters  came  to  light  in  the  middle  of  Africa,  and  great  rivers 
and  woods  in  which  were  strange  little  men,  named  '  pygmies,'  and  animals  which 
no  one  had  ever  seen  before.  All  this  country  was  full  of  animals,  from  the 
African  elephant,  which  was  the  greatest,  to  the  '  dik-dik,'  which  was  about  the 
size  of  a  cat,  only  its  legs  were  longer.  A  great  number  of  animals  were  put  to  death 
by  sportsmen,  and  the  '  quagga '  (which  was  somewhat  like  a  horse  but  with  bands  of 
black  and  white)  went  quite  out  of  existence,  as  that  strange  bird,  the  'dodo,'  had 
done  a  short  time  before.  But  for  one  or  two  not  very  important  parts,  all  Africa 
was  taken  up  by  different  European  nations. 

Thousands  of  Europeans  went  from  their  countries  to  North  and  South  America 
and  made  colonies  all  over  the  land.  The  black  slaves,  of  whom  there  were  a  great 
number  in  the  south  of  North  America,  were  made  free  by  law,  and  the  slave  trade 
was  stopped.  Englshmen  went  out  to  Australia,  though  there  was  so  much  room 
in  the  country  that  they  took  up  only  a  very  small  part  of  it. 

The  Kings,  who  had  been  a  trouble  everywhere  because  they  wouldn't  have 
any  changes,  were  forced  to  give  up  their  positions  in  a  number  of  countries,  and 
became  simple  Mr.'s,  and  new  governments  named  Republics  were  formed,  in  which 
Presidents  took  the  place  of  Kings.  And  even  when  the  Kings  weren't  pushed  out, 
their  power  was  taken  away,  so  that  they  no  longer  did  any   ruling  but  only  went 


round  opening  hospitals  and  such  things.   This  was  the  start  of  '  Democracy,'  or  the 
government  "  of  all  by  all  for  all,"  but  it  was  only  the  start. 

All  the  time  science  was  taking  great  steps,  some  back  and  some  forward. 
Darwin  made  the  discovery  that  we  are  a  branch  of  the  monkey  family,  and  that  Adam 
and  Eve,  if  there  ever  were  such  persons,  were  not  at  all  beautiful,  being  covered  with 
hair  all  over.  Pasteur  made  us  safe  from  dogs  with  '  rabies ',  which  go  running  about 
biting  everybody ;  and  there  were  great  discoveries  in  astronomy,  zoology,  geology, 
and  botany— the  sciences  of  the  stars,  of  animals,  of  metals,  and  of  plants.  My  father 
made  discoveries  about  '  meteorites,'  or  small  parts  of  other  stars  which  sometimes 
come  falling  down  on  the  earth. 

The  invention  of  the  camera  took  place  at  this  time,  and  of  the  '  bicycle ';  and 
all  sorts  of  things  were  made  in  great  numbers  by  machines,  and  sent  all  over  the 
earth  by  railway  and  steam-boat.  And  every  day  the  newspapers  gave  everyone  the 
news  of  what  was  taking  place  everywhere. 


19 

The  middle  picture  is  of  a  man  journeying  in  Africa  ;  his  African  porters  have  food 
in  boxes  on  their  heads  and  all  the  animals  and  the  pygmies,  are  most  surprised.  On  the  left 
a  king  is  taking  off  his  king's  clothing  and  becoming  only  Mr.  So-and-So.  On  the  other  side, 
some  miners  are  going  down  to  the  mine  with  their  special  lights  in  their  hands. 

In  the  lowest  picture  on  the  left,   a  man  is  having  his  picture  taken  by  a  camera-man ; 

his  ears  are  fixed  in  a  sort  of  grip  so  that  he  is  unable  to  make  a  move.    The  camera-man 

has  a  black  cloth  over  his  head.    In  the  middle  is  one  of  the  first  bicycles,  with  a  very  high 

front  wheel  and  a  little  back  one.    These  machines  were  much  harder  to  keep  your  balance 

on. 

At  the  right  you  will  see  three  men  reading  an  early  newspaper.  The  little  boy  is 
very  interested,  but  the  men  are  not  letting  him  have  a  look. 


20 


Then  came  the  present  time,  and  there  were  no  more  discoveries  of  new  land 
to  be  made,  and  men  had  to  do  their  best  with  what  they  had.  So  they  made 
automobiles  in  which  they  went  driving  violently  about  the  roads,  and  airplanes 
which  went  like  the  wind  through  the  skies;  and  the  invention  of  radio  gave  them 
the  chance  of  hearing  talks  and  music  from  all  over  the  earth  seated  by  their  firesides  ; 
and  the  motion  pictures  took  them  in  masses  to  dark  theatres  where  there  was  no 
air,  to  see  foolish  goings-on  which  weren't  at  all  important  and  were  frequently  in 
bad  taste.  And  then  someone  got  to  the  North  Pole,  and  some  other  person  got  to 
the  South  Pole,  and  a  number  of  persons  made  attempts  to  get  to  the  top  of  Mount 
Everest,  which  is  the  highest  mountain  on  the  earth,  and  wasn't  made  for  men  to  go  up ; 
and  someone  made  the  discovery  of  the  'stratosphere,'  which  is  a  band  of  air  miles 
up  in  the  sky  keeping  the  full  force  of  the  sun  from  us.  Then  came  Einstein,  with  his 
theory  of  '  Relativity,'  and  Dunne  with  his  new  theory  of  time,  and  everyone  said 
"  What  great  discoveries!  "  and  took  their  heads  in  their  hands  ;  because  Einstein  said 
that  a  straight  line  isn't  a  straight  line  at  all,  and  Dunne  said  that  it  is  possible  to  see 
today  what  is  going  to  take  place  the  day  after  tomorrow  as  clearly  as  what  took  place 
last  Friday.  And  Einstein  said  that  space  and  time  are  not  two  independent  things, 
as  they  had  been  taken  to  be,  but  so  dependent  on  one  another  that  for  purposes  of 
science  they  have  to  be  looked  on  as  one— which  is  possibly  a  little  hard  to  get 
clear  about,  but  of  great  use. 

But  though  science  and  the  invention  of  machines  had  made  so  much  head- 
way that  there  was  more  than  enough  food  and  clothing  and  other  things  for  every 
man  and  woman  and  boy  and  girl  in  existence,  though  there  were  more  than  enough 
ships  on  the  sea  and  trains  and  automobiles  on  the  land,  all  the  nations  of  the  earth 
still  kept  the  old  idea  of  competition,  and  the  old  desire  to  get  everything  for 
themselves,  and  were  still  full  of  the  old  fear  of  other  nations.  So,  without  any 
thought  for  those  who  were  in  need,  fish  which  had  been  taken  out  of  the  sea 
were   put   back    into   it,    and   stores   of   coffee    and    grain   were    burned,    and    the 


fruits  of  the  earth  were  ploughed  back  into  the  land,  for  fear  that  if  there  was 
over-much  of  them  on  the  market  they  would  become  cheap,  and  somebody  would 
not  make  as  much  money. 

And  though  the  old  slave  system  had  been  put  an  end  to,  a  new  sort  had 
come  into  existence  by  which  millions  of  persons  were  not  given  a  chance  of  working 
and  getting  a  living,  but  were  kept  in  disgusting,  dirty  houses,  with  nothing  to  do 
and  nothing  to  keep  their  minds  interested,  and  were  not  even  able  to  go  about  and 
get  a  knowledge  of  the  geography  of  their  country. 


20 

It's  not  possible  to  see  the  automobiles  clearly  because  they  are  going  so  quickly, 
but  it  is  possible  to  see  the  airplanes  though  they  are  going  even  more  quickly.  I  have  put 
in  the  radio  waves,  though  you  don't  see  them  when  you  are  hearing  the  radio. 

The  picture  under  this  is  the  sort  you  frequently  see  at  the  moving  pictures.  It's 
a  foolish  business  kissing  in  public. 

The  man  in  the  picture  after  this  has  made  the  discovery  of  the  North  Pole  and  is 
planting  a  flag  where  no  one  will  see  it.  The  other  man  was  the  first  to  get  to  the  South 
Pole  ;    he  is  in  no  danger  of  falling  off  the  edge,  though  it's  hard  to  see  why  not. 

I  have  only  put  in  the  lower  slopes  of  Everest  because  I  hadn't  room  for  the  top. 

The  poor  persons  in  the  picture  after  this  are  out  of  work  ;  they  haven't  anything 
to  do  and  nothing  to  give  them  interesting  thoughts,  and  no  chance  of  seeing  other  places. 

The  middle  picture  is  the  Earth  seen  from  over  the  North  Pole— the  lines  up  and  down 
and  from  side  to  side  are  only  there  to  give  you  an  idea  of  the  distances. 


21 

And  then— but  we  still  haven't  come  to  it— something  was  seen  to  be  very 
wrong  with  the  different  governments,  and  Dictators  were  seen  to  be  quite  as  bad 
as  Kings,  if  not  worse.  And  those  who  had  great  property  and  great  power  became 
poorer  and  their  power  became  less,  and  the  poor  became  better-off;  and  everyone 
saw  that  persons  with  white,  yellow,  black,  or  brown  skins  were  all  brothers  and 
sisters,  and  all  the  earth  became  one  great  country,  as  it  was  designed  to  be  from 
the  start ;  and  no  one  did  much  work  but  everyone  did  a  little  for  the  good  of  all. 

Then  Geography  became  interesting  to  everyone,  so  much  so  that  everyone 
went  all  over  the  earth  in  airplanes  and  ships  and  trains  and  automobiles  and  on 
bicycles  ;  and  some  persons  who  had  a  desire  for  more  detailed  knowledge  of  certain 
places  went  on  horses  or  donkeys,  and  a  number  went  on  foot. 

And  all  the  different  languages  which  had  made  journeys  so  hard  before,  and 
which  boys  and  girls  had  had  to  put  so  much  time  on  at  school,  gave  place  to  one 
language  which  schools  everywhere  were  teaching,  in  place  of  Latin  and  Greek,  for 
the  purpose  of  making  it  possible  to  go  about  the  earth  freely.  And  there  were  no 
more  taxes  on  goods  going  into  other  countries,  and  no  passports  necessary  in  going 
from  one  country  to  another,  because  there  was  no  more  need  for  them. 

And  maps  became  living  things  because  they  were  pictures  of  new  countries 
to  be  seen  or  old  countries  which  we  had  been  to  before  to  be  seen  again. 

And  foolish  wars,  which  were  no  good  to  anyone  and  did  damage  to  everything, 
as  wars  have  done  all  through  history,  became  things  of  the  past;  and  men  and 
women  gave  up  desiring  the  goods  of  others  and  caring  only  for  themselves,  and 
everyone  was  free  to  go  all  over  the  earth,  and  to  have  months  of  free  time 
in  beautiful  places  and  to  make  friends  of  those  from  other  countries. 


21 

Here  is  a  map  of  the  Earth  as  it  is  in  fact,  only  it  had  to  be  made  flat  to  be  printed 
on  flat  paper,  because  I  was  unable  to  get  an  oblate  spheroid  between  the  covers  of  this 
book. 

Everyone  is  having  a  good  time  and  going  all  over  the  earth,  as  I  am  hoping  they  will 
be  doing  before  long.  Two  persons  are  going  up  into  the  stratosphere,  but  I  haven't  had 
room  to  put  in  the  gas-bag  which  will  take  them  up,  or  the  persons  on  the  earth  to  whom 
they  are  waving. 

If  you  had  the  chance,  which  of  these  ways  of  journeying  would  you  take  ?  I  myself 
go  in  an  automobile,  but  it's  such  an  old  one  that  I  haven't  put  it  in  this  picture. 


PRINTED   IN   GREAT    BRITAIN 
BY  K.  I.  SEVERS,  CAMBRIDGE 


"P  I  'ill  II  III 


000  0 


